NFC East Champ?

[The Huddle]

Originally Posted by davy

Right now only a blind optimist would predict anything other than a last place finish in the division next year.

I haven't really sat down and looked at everything closely so I reserve the right to do a 360 on this one at any time. However, my knee-jerk, off-the-cuff reaction is that we (Skins fans as a group) are falling in to a familiar trap: other teams in the division have major issues + the Redskins occasionally flashed promise in the later half of the season + they have the offseason to tweak problem areas = Washington is definately a contender next year. I'm not buying this time around.

The rest of the NFC East may well have issues, but they did all make the playoffs, and the Redskins were 1-5 against this bunch.

There are indeed some reasons for optimism, Jason Campbell's continued development being the single largest one. On the whole, though, I see no reason to expect a dramatic improvement from Washington. From this year's soggy 5-11 finish, 8-8 would seem like a reasonable goal. I have stated before that increasingly it is my belief that this orgainzation is fatally flawed from a structural perspective- not just the on the field product but the appraoch to building it - and that the five game push to close 2005 looks more and more like an anaomolly. I would LOVE to have egg on my face about this later on, but until I see demonstrably better play on the field- not here and there but on a week-to-week basis -I will be skeptical that Gibbs II is on the right path.